Nay, this is matter for the month of March,

When hares are maddest. Either speak in reason,

Giving cold argument the wall of passion,

Or I break up the court. --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

It is by no means our purpose to detail minutely all the princely

festivities of Kenilworth, after the fashion of Master Robert Laneham,

whom we quoted in the conclusion of the last chapter. It is sufficient

to say that under discharge of the splendid fireworks, which we

have borrowed Laneham's eloquence to describe, the Queen entered the

base-court of Kenilworth, through Mortimer's Tower, and moving on

through pageants of heathen gods and heroes of antiquity, who offered

gifts and compliments on the bended knee, at length found her way to

the Great Hall of the Castle, gorgeously hung for her reception with the

richest silken tapestry, misty with perfumes, and sounding to strains

of soft and delicious music. From the highly-carved oaken roof hung

a superb chandelier of gilt bronze, formed like a spread eagle, whose

outstretched wings supported three male and three female figures,

grasping a pair of branches in each hand. The Hall was thus illuminated

by twenty-four torches of wax. At the upper end of the splendid

apartment was a state canopy, overshadowing a royal throne, and beside

it was a door, which opened to a long suite of apartments, decorated

with the utmost magnificence for the Queen and her ladies, whenever it

should be her pleasure to be private.

The Earl of Leicester having handed the Queen up to her throne, and

seated her there, knelt down before her, and kissing the hand which she

held out, with an air in which romantic and respectful gallantry was

happily mingled with the air of loyal devotion, he thanked her, in terms

of the deepest gratitude, for the highest honour which a sovereign could

render to a subject. So handsome did he look when kneeling before her,

that Elizabeth was tempted to prolong the scene a little longer than

there was, strictly speaking, necessity for; and ere she raised him,

she passed her hand over his head, so near as almost to touch his long,

curled, and perfumed hair, and with a movement of fondness that seemed

to intimate she would, if she dared, have made the motion a slight

caress.

[To justify what may be considered as a high-coloured picture, the

author quotes the original of the courtly and shrewd Sir James Melville,

being then Queen Mary's envoy at the court of London.

"I was required," says Sir James, "to stay till I had seen him made

Earle of Leicester, and Baron of Denbigh, with great solemnity; herself

(Elizabeth) helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting on his knees

before her, keeping a great gravity and a discreet behaviour; but she

could not refrain from putting her hand to his neck to kittle (i.e.,

tickle) him, smilingly, the French Ambassador and I standing beside

her."--MELVILLE'S MEMOIRS, BANNATYNE EDITION, p. 120.] She at length raised him, and standing beside the throne, he explained

to her the various preparations which had been made for her amusement

and accommodation, all of which received her prompt and gracious

approbation. The Earl then prayed her Majesty for permission that he

himself, and the nobles who had been in attendance upon her during the

journey, might retire for a few minutes, and put themselves into a guise

more fitting for dutiful attendance, during which space those gentlemen

of worship (pointing to Varney, Blount, Tressilian, and others), who

had already put themselves into fresh attire, would have the honour of

keeping her presence-chamber.




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